Sweet dreams: Banning unhealthy treats can lead to children becoming obsessed with junk food

Stopping ourselves – and, increasingly, our children – overeating can be a daily battle. Instinct might tell you to bin the biscuit tin and stop the sweet treats.

So what I am about to say might seem odd.

As a psychologist who has spent many years helping patients overcoming compulsive eating habits, I know that outlawing all junk food often backfires – with very serious consequences.

In fact, doing so could sow the seeds of a lifelong battle with compulsive overeating.

WE CRAVE WHAT WE CAN’T HAVE

Many patients at my clinic describe being denied treats, only to fanatically overcompensate by obsessing about food.

One
woman’s father had been brought up in the austerity of post-war Britain
and was fastidious about her not eating between meals and clearing
everything on her plate.

So
the moment she got her first Saturday job she spent all her wages on
crisps, chocolate and milkshakes to make up for all the things she felt
she’d missed out on.

Another
male patient in his 40s had parents who only ever kept apples and fig
rolls in the house as snacks for the children – so whenever he went to
parties at the houses of other children, he gorged on treats and cake.

And so a pattern of behaviour was set: he later took to stealing any
chocolate his parents kept ‘for grown-ups’, and when he had dinner money
to spend, he bought – yes, you’ve guessed it – McDonald’s. As an adult,
splurging £50 in KFC, Burger King and Krispy Kreme gave him that same
thrill.

Part of growing up
is being able to make our own decisions and assert control. When we have
the freedom to eat what, when and where we like during our teenage
years, there is a natural tendency to explore things that might have
been off-limits at home.

Foods that are often banned are high in fat and
sugar, which are shown to stimulate the pleasure centres of the brain.
This, coupled with the excitement of doing something perceived as
illicit, can be a highly addictive mix.

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STOP USING FOOD AS A WEAPON

I’m not saying you should offer your children pizza and chips every day or cave in to their demands for ice cream at breakfast. But if they do ask for a treat, say: ‘OK, why don’t we have it on Friday after dinner?’

Let them be part of the choice. Explain that if we eat cakes all the time, it’s not good for our bodies, but we can eat them sometimes. If they ask for a fast-food burger, say you have already planned dinner but suggest having one at the weekend. Try to use neutral language and not to be emotional about it, or demonise any single food. Don’t warn them: ‘You’ll get fat… like me!’ as this heaps pressure on a developing mind. The point is that most foods are fine in moderation. Don’t use food as a reward for good behaviour or take it away as a form of punishment.

Another classic problem is discovering your child has gone to school with a healthy lunch box, and simply swapped their food for crisps and sweets. If your son or daughter wants these foods, try to build them in occasionally – say once a week – to a mostly healthy diet. If you find out about secretive eating, talk about it. Getting it out in the open, saying it’s understandable and doesn’t need to be hidden removes much of the motivation.

All in: Outlawing all junk food often backfires and could sow the seeds of a lifelong battle with compulsive overeating

FACE THE REASONS YOU EAT

It is predicted that half of Britons will be obese – the medical term for weight that poses a serious health risk – by 2050. It’s more than a problem of eating too much and doing too little.

The truth is that many of us eat for emotional reasons, like seeking comfort from food, and it is that which millions of dieters struggle with daily. Overeating doesn’t always start in childhood, but in my experience the groundwork is usually done then.

Another patient of mine shows how these problems arise. As a girl, she was made to finish every morsel on her plate, and if she refused the same food, it would be brought out again and again – cold, congealed and even more unappetising than before. Her parents were using food as a form of control. She learned early on that gaining approval and love was conditional on eating, even if she wasn’t hungry.

As an adult she became a compulsive overeater, and extremely overweight. She binged in a futile attempt to stop feelings of self-loathing. And, of course, is the bigger she became, the worse she felt. And because she never wanted her own children to experience her distress and hunger, they were over-fed, and ballooned in weight from an early age.

The woman had tried diets, but she was only able to tackle the root of her problem and begin to lose weight through therapy.

IDENTIFY THE URGE

To reveal your food relationship history, think back to certain times in your life – childhood, adolescence, adulthood – and write down your thoughts about food during each of these times and what part it played. If you can explore this, not only does it help you to acknowledge these things in your past, you can move on from them, and therefore not have the same negative feelings about yourself time and again.

You may emotionally eat for many reasons – not just strict parental attitudes towards food, which is disastrous in many cases. Maybe you overeat to suppress negative feelings about yourself or use food for emotional comfort when you can’t get it anywhere else in your life.

Emotional eating often has its roots somewhere in your past. Until you can recognise and understand the urge to overeat, the danger is that you will just keep using food to deal with what goes on emotionally.

The urge to over-eat is usually unconscious, repetitive and automatic. When you feel yourself needing to emotionally eat – you want to eat but you don’t feel hungry – stop and examine your feelings. Apply the five Ws: who, what, where, when and why. Make notes to get the facts out of your head which will help you calm down. By thinking more carefully about your situation you can learn to let any emotionally provoking incident lose its intensity and influence – and stop the spiral into overeating.

Stop Overeating by Dr Jane McCartney, which includes a 28 day eating plan, is published by Vermilion, priced £10.99. To order your copy at the special price of £9.99 with free p&p, call The Mail Book Shop on 0844 472 4157 or go to www.mailbookshop.co.uk.

Sugar? It's like crack cocaine for comfort eaters

Refined carbohydrates – another term for sugar – display all the hallmarks of an addictive drug in the way they affect us.

They give an instant buzz that’s both pleasant and mood-altering. Indeed, lab studies on rats suggest sugar affects their brain chemistry in a similar way to cocaine.

But you don’t need a scientist to tell you that food can be seductive.

Eating creates pleasant sensations that can change our mood, and anything packed with refined carbohydrates, such as cakes and chocolate, will cause an instant lift and energy boost.

Consuming refined carbohydrates accelerates the absorption of an amino acid that our brain converts to serotonin, a neurotransmitter that makes us feel good.

If you’re feeling down, comfort eating is an instant way of giving yourself a lift – and sugar is the crack cocaine of comfort eating.

It’s for this reason that at addiction treatment centres chocolates and sweets are prohibited. Food can become an addiction just like any other.

If this sounds a little crazy, let’s try comparing the effects of refined carbohydrates to another addictive substance – alcohol.

When an alcoholic is feeling down, they’ll take a drink in order to give themselves a lift. The same can be said for sugar. When we binge on refined carbohydrates, we consume way beyond a healthy calorie intake, and the reason we’re doing so is to change the way we feel.

Alcohol is a substance that a large proportion of the adult population overindulges in, to the point where it causes serious health problems. This can be said of sugar, too. In fact, statistics show the negative cost of obesity to the nation’s health is far higher than for booze.

Alcoholics can’t control the amount they drink, regardless of the consequences. It’s the same with sugar. No one wants to overeat to the point where they become morbidly obese, yet there are people all around us who cannot help themselves.

Food is a mood-altering substance with addictive properties. No wonder we’re a nation of addicts.

Who Says I’m An Addict, by David Smallwood, is published by Hay House on June 2, priced £12.99. To order your copy at £11.49 with free p&p, call the Mail Bookstore on 0844 472 4157 or go to mailbookshop.co.uk